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U.N. Probes Allegations Of Corruption, Fraud
By Louis Charbonneau
Thu Jan 10, 6:35 PM ET

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. internal investigative unit has found an unexpected amount of fraud and abuse in some 250 cases currently underway, including alleged sexual and financial offenses.

"Our caseload has been very steady over the last three months, around 250 cases," Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), told reporters. "We found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an extent we didn't really expect."

Ahlenius said two-thirds of the cases related to peacekeeping missions. Around 80 involved possible sexual exploitation and abuse.

The former chief auditor of Sweden held the news conference in response to media reports suggesting that there has been widespread fraud related to U.N. peacekeeping contracts.

She said investigators had confirmed that contracts worth around $600 million involved fraud at some level. The total U.N. peacekeeping budget for 2007-2008 exceeds $5 billion.

Robert Appleton, head of the OIOS's Procurement Task Force, a temporary body set up in 2006 after corruption was revealed in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, said only a minority of U.N. contracts were irregular and many allegations could not be substantiated.

Ahlenius said the OIOS had begun urgently reviewing a $250 million contract the United Nations signed with a unit of U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin Corp without competitive bidding to build five peacekeeping bases in Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur.

"We have been mandated by the General Assembly to carry out a review of the circumstances," she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has come under fire for awarding the contract to Lockheed unit Pacific Architects and Engineers Inc without opening the field to competitors.

The OIOS review will be part of a wider review of all such single-source contracts, Ahlenius said.

In December the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution criticizing Ban for his decision and demanding the OIOS review. Ban said current U.N. rules allowed him to award such contracts in exceptional cases where only one supplier was considered able to deliver at short notice.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alan Elsner)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080110/wl_nm/un_corruption_dc
;_ylt=AlBrxMsAGKGO0hIJU.a1es4EtbAF

[Czarjorge]

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